Chapter Two.
The Living among the Dead.
The household of Maxfield, worn-out by the excitement of the night, slept, or rather lay in bed, till hard on midday.
The tutor, as he slowly turned on his side and caught sight of the winter sun through the frost-bespangled window, felt profoundly disinclined to rise. He shrank from the tasks that awaited him—the task of witnessing the grief of the widow and the pale looks of the orphan heir, the dismal negotiations with undertakers and clergymen and lawyers, the stupid questions of the domestics, the sickly fragrance of stephanotis in the house. Then, too, there was the awkward uncertainty as to his own future. What effect would the tragedy of last night have on that? Was it a notice to quit, or what? He should be sorry to go. He liked the place, he liked his pupil, and further, he had nowhere else to go. Altogether Mr Armstrong felt very reluctant to exchange his easy bed for the chances and changes of the waking world. Besides, lastly, the water in his bath, he could see, was frozen; and it was hopeless on a day like this to expect that Raffles would bring him sufficient hot, even to shave with.
However, the tutor had had some little practice before now in doing what he did not like. With a sigh and a shiver, therefore, he flung aside his blankets and proceeded to break the ice literally, and take his bath. After that he felt decidedly better, and with the help of a steady ten minutes grind at the dumb-bells, he succeeded in pulling himself together.
He had reached this stage in his toilet when a knock came at the door.
“Come in, Raffles,” said Mr Armstrong, beginning to see some prospect of a shave after all.
It was not Raffles, but Dr Brandram, equipped for the road.
“I’m off, Armstrong,” said he. “I’d ask you to come and drive me, only I think you are wanted here. See the boy eats enough and doesn’t mope. You must amuse him if you can. You understand what I told you last night was not for him. By the way,”—here the doctor held out a sealed packet—“this was lying on the old man’s table last night. It was probably to give it to you that he sent for you in the afternoon, and then forgot it. Well, good-bye. I shall come to-morrow if the roads are passable. I only hope, for my sake, all this will not make any difference to your remaining at Maxfield.”
Mr Armstrong finished his toilet leisurely, and then proceeded to examine the packet.
It was a large envelope, addressed, “Frank Armstrong, Esquire,” in the old man’s quavering hand.
Within was another envelope, firmly sealed, on which the same hand had written these words—
“To be given unopened into the hands of Roger Ingleton, junior, on his twentieth birthday.”
The effort of writing those few words had evidently been almost more than the writer could accomplish, for towards the end the letters became almost illegible, and the words were huddled in a heap at the corner of the paper. The sealing, too, to judge from the straggling blots of wax all over and the ineffective marks of the seal, must have been the labour of a painful morning to the feeble, half-blind old man.
To the tutor, however, as he held the missive in his hand, and looked at it with the reverence one feels for a token from the dead, it seemed to make one or two things tolerably clear.
First, that the contents, whatever they were, were secret and important, else the old man would never have taken upon himself a labour he could so easily have devolved upon another. Secondly, that this old man, rightly or wrongly, regarded Frank Armstrong as a man to be trusted, and contemplated that a year hence he would occupy the same position with regard to the heir of Maxfield as he did now.
Having arrived at which conclusions, the tutor returned the packet to its outer envelope and locked the whole up in his desk. Which done, he descended to the breakfast-room.
As he had expected, no one was there. What was worse, there was no sign either of fire or breakfast. To a man who has not tasted food for about twenty hours, such a discovery could not fail to be depressing, and Mr Armstrong meekly decided to summon Raffles to his assistance. As he passed down the passage, he could not forbear halting for a moment at the door of a certain room, behind which he knew the mortal remains of his dead employer lay. As he paused, not liking to enter, liking still less to pass on, the sound of footsteps within startled him. It was not difficult, after a moment’s reflection, to guess to whom they belonged, and the tutor softly tapped on the door.
The only answer was the abrupt halting of the footsteps. Mr Armstrong entered and found his pupil.
Roger was standing in the ulster he had worn last night. His eyes were black and heavy with weariness, his face was almost as white as the face of him who lay on the couch, and as he turned to the open door his teeth chattered with cold.
“I couldn’t leave him alone,” whispered he apologetically, as the tutor laid a gentle hand on his arm.
“Of course—of course,” replied Mr Armstrong. “I guessed it was you. Would you rather be left alone?”
“No,” said the lad wearily. “I thought by staying here I should get some help—some—I don’t know what, Armstrong. But instead, I’m half asleep. I’ve been yawning and shivering, and forgotten who was here—and—” Here his eyes filled with tears.
“Dear old fellow,” said the tutor, “you are fagged out. Come and get a little rest.”
Roger sighed, partly to feel himself beaten, partly at the prospect of rest.
“All right!” said he. “I’m ashamed you should see me so weak when I wanted to be strong. Yes, I’ll come—in one minute.”
He walked over to the couch and knelt beside it. His worn-out body had succumbed at last to the misery against which it had battled so long, and for a moment he yielded himself to his sorrow. The tutor waited a moment, and then walked quietly from the room.
For a quarter of an hour he paced restlessly in the cold passage outside; then, as his pupil did not appear, he returned to the chamber of death. Roger Ingleton, as he expected, had fallen asleep where he knelt.
The wretched days between the death and the funeral dragged on in the usual dismal fashion. Mrs Ingleton kept her room; the domestics took the occasion to neglect their work, and Roger Ingleton, minor, passed through all the stages from inconsolable misery to subdued cheerfulness. Mr Armstrong alone went through no stages, but remained the same unimpassioned individual he had been ever since he became a member of the Maxfield household.
“Armstrong,” said the boy, the day before the funeral, “do you know, I’m the only male Ingleton left?”
“I didn’t know it. Have you no uncles or cousins?”
“None on our side. Some distant cousins on, mother’s side, but they’re abroad. We were going over the lot yesterday, mother and I; but we couldn’t scrape up a single relation to come to-morrow. We shall have to get you and Brandram and fathers solicitor to come to the funeral, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course I shall come,” said Mr Armstrong.
“And, by the way, it seems rather queer, doesn’t it, that I shall have charge of all this big property, and, I suppose, be master of all the people about the place.”
“Naturally. Amongst your humble and obedient servants the present tutor of Maxfield will need to be included.”
“Oh, you!” said Roger, smiling; “yes, you’ll need to look out how you behave, you know, or I shall have to terminate our engagement. Isn’t it queer?”
Queer as it was, the tutor winced at the jest, and screwed his eye-glass a little deeper into his eye.
“Seriously, though,” said Roger, “I’m awfully glad I’ve got you here to advise me. I want to do things well about the place, and keep square with the tenants, and improve a great many things. I noticed a whole lot of cottages to-day that want rebuilding. And I think I ought to build a club-room for the young fellows in the village, and give a new lifeboat to replace the ‘Vega,’ What do you think?”
“I’ll tell you this time to-morrow. Meanwhile what do you say to a ride before dark? It would do you good.”
They had a long trot through the lanes and along the shore, ending with a canter over the downs, which landed the heir of Maxfield at home with a glow in his cheeks and an appetite such as he had not known for a week.
Next day the funeral took place in the family vault at the little churchyard of Yeld. The villagers, as in duty bound, flocked to pay their last respects to the old Squire, whose face for the last twenty years they had scarcely seen, and of whose existence, save on rent-day, many of them had been well-nigh ignorant.
Many an eye turned curiously to the slim, pale boy, as he stood alone, the last of his house, at the open tomb; and many a speculation as to his temper and prospects occupied minds which were supposed to be intent on the solemn words of the Burial Service.
Roger himself, with that waywardness of the attention which afflicts us even in the gravest acts of our life, found himself listening to the words in a sort of dream, while his mind was occupied in reading over to himself the names of his ancestors inscribed on the panels of the vault.
“John Ingleton of Maxfield Manor, who died ye ninth day of June, 1760, aetat 74.
“Peter Ingleton of Maxfield Manor, his son, obiit March 6, 1794.
“Paul Ingleton, only son of above Peter; born January 1, 1790, died September 20, 1844.
“Ruth, beloved wife of Roger Ingleton, Esquire, of Maxfield Manor, who died on February 14, 1865, aged 37.”
Now a new inscription would be added.
“Roger Ingleton, son of the above-named Paul Ingleton, who died January 10, 1885.”
And when that was added, there would yet be space for another name below.
Roger shuddered a little, and brought his mind back with an effort to the solemn act which was taking place.
The clergyman’s voice ceased, and the fatherless lad stooped to get a last view of the flower-covered coffin. Then, with a heart lonelier than he had ever known it before, he turned away.
The people fell back and made a silent lane for him to pass.
“Poor lad,” said a country wife, as she looked after him, “pity knows, he’ll be this way again before long.”
“Hold thy tongue,” said another; “thee’d look white and shaky if thee was the only man of thy name left on earth—eh, Uncle Hodder?”
“Let un go,” said the venerable proprietor of the tutor’s borrowed horse last week, “let ’un go. The Ingletons was all weaklings, but they held out to nigh on threescore and ten years. All bar the best of them—there was naught weak about him, yet he dropped off in blossom-time.”
“Ay, ay, poor lad,” said the elder of the women in a whisper, “pity of the boy. He’d have taken the load on his shoulders to-day better than yonder white child.”
“Hold thy tongue and come and take thy look at the old Squire’s last lying-place.”
Roger overheard none of their talk, but wandered on, lonely, but angry with himself for feeling as unemotional as he did. He told the coachman he would walk home, and started along the half-thawed lanes, hoping that the five miles solitary walk would help to bring him into a frame of mind more appropriate to the occasion.
But try as he would, his mind wandered; first to his mother; then to Maxfield and the villagers; then to his pet schemes for a model village; then to Armstrong and his studies; then to a certain pair of foils that hung in his room; then to the possibility of a yacht next summer; then to the county festivities next winter, with perhaps a ball at Maxfield; then to his approaching majority, and all the delights of unfettered manhood; then—
He had got so far at the end of a mile, when he heard steps tramping through the mud behind him.
It was Mr Armstrong.
The boy’s first impulse was to put on an air of dejection he was far from feeling; but his honesty came to his rescue in time.
“Hullo, Armstrong! I’m so glad it’s you. You’ll never guess what I was thinking about when I heard you?”
“About being elected M.P. for the county?” asked the tutor gravely.
“How did you guess that? I tried to think about other things, you know, but—”
“Luckily you chose to be natural instead. Well, I hope you’ll be elected, when the time comes.”
The two beguiled their walk in talk which, if not exactly what might have been expected of mourners, at least served to restore the boy’s highly-strung mind to its proper tone, and to make the aspect of things in general brighter for him than it had been when he started so dismally from the graveyard.
“Now,” said he, with a sigh, as they entered the house, “now comes the awful business of reading the will. Pottinger is sure to make an occasion of it. It would be worth your while to be present to hear him perform.”
“Thanks!” said the tutor; “I’ll look to you for a full account of the ceremony by and by. I’ll accompany it to slow music upstairs.”
But as it happened, Mr Armstrong was not permitted to escape, as he had fondly hoped, to his piano. Raffles followed him presently to his room and said—
“Please, sir, Mr Pottinger sends his compliments, and will be glad if you will step down to the library, sir.”
Mr Armstrong scowled.
“What does he want?” he muttered.
“He wants a gentleman or two to say ’ear, ’ear, I fancy,” said the page, with a grin.
Mr Armstrong gave a melancholy glance at his piano, and screwed his glass in his eye aggressively.
“All right, Raffles; you can go.”
“What does the old idiot want with me, I wonder,” said he to himself, “unless it’s to give me a month’s notice, and tell me I may clear out? Heigho! I hope not.”
With which pleasant misgivings, he strolled down-stairs.
In the library was assembled a small but select audience to do Mr Pottinger, the Yeld attorney, honour. The widow was there, looking pale but charming in her deep mourning and tasteful cap. Roger was there, restless, impatient, and a little angry at all the fuss. Dr Brandram and the Rector were there, resigned, as men who had been through ceremonies of the kind before. And a deputation of dead-servants sat on chairs near the door, gratified to be included in the party, and mentally going over their services to the testator, and appraising them in anticipation.
“We were waiting for you, Mr Armstrong,” said the attorney severely, as the tutor entered.
Mr Armstrong looked not at all well pleased to be thus accosted, and walked to a seat in the bay-window behind Mr Pottinger.
The man of the law put on his glasses, took a sip of water from a tumbler he had had brought in, blew his nose, and glancing round on his audience with all the enjoyment of a man who feels himself master of the situation, began to make a little speech.
There was first a little condescending preamble concerning the virtues of the deceased, which every one but Roger listened to respectfully. The son felt it as much as he could put up with to sit still and hear it, and began to fidget ominously, and greatly to the disturbance of the speaker. When Mr Pottinger, after a few reproachful pauses, left this topic and began to discourse on his own relations with the late Squire, it was the turn of Dr Brandram to become restless.
“This is not the occasion for dwelling on the gratification I received from—”
Here the doctor deliberately rose and walked across the room for a footstool, which, as deliberately, he walked back with and laid at the feet of Mrs Ingleton. “Beg pardon—go on,” said he, meeting the astonished eye of the attorney.
“The gratification I received from the kind expressions—”
Here a large coal inconsiderately fell out of the fire with a loud clamour. Raffles, with considerable commotion, came from his seat and proceeded to restore it to its lost estate.
Mr Pottinger took his glasses from his nose and regarded the performance with such abject distress, that Roger, catching sight of his face, involuntarily smiled. “Really,” exclaimed the now thoroughly offended friend of the family, “really, my boy, on an occasion such as this—”
Here the Rector, to every one’s relief, came gallantly to the rescue. “This is very tedious, Mr Pottinger,” said he. “The friends here, I am sure, will prefer that you should omit all these useless preliminaries, and come to the business at once. Let me read the document for you; my eyes are younger than yours.”
At this terrific act of insubordination, and the almost blasphemous suggestion which capped it, the lawyer fell back in his chair and broke out into a profuse perspiration, gazing at the Rector as he would at some suddenly intruding wild animal. Then, with a gasp, taking in the peril of the whole situation, he hastily took up the will and plunged into it.
It was a long, tedious document, hard to understand; and when it was ended, no one exactly grasped its purport.
Then came the moment of Mr Pottinger’s revenge. The party was at his mercy after all.
“What does it all amount to?” said the doctor, interpreting the perplexed looks of the company.
“I had better perhaps explain it in simple words,” said the attorney condescendingly, “if you will give me your attention.”
You might have heard a pin drop now.
“Briefly, the provisions of our dear friend’s will are these. Proper provision is made for the support in comfort of the widow during her life. Legacies are also left, as you have heard, to certain friends, servants, and charities. The whole of the remaining property, which it is my impression will be found to be very considerable, is left in trust for the testator’s only son, Roger, our young friend here, who is to receive it absolutely on reaching the age of twenty-one. The conditions of the trust are a trifle peculiar. There are three trustees, who are also guardians of the heir. The first is Mrs Ingleton, the widow; the second is Edward Oliphant, Esquire, of Her Majesty’s Indian Army, second cousin, I understand, of Mrs Ingleton, and, in the event (which I trust is not likely) of the death of our young friend here, heir-presumptive to the property. His trusteeship is dependent on his coming to this country and assuming the duties of guardian to the heir, and provision is made accordingly. The third trustee and guardian is Mr Frank Armstrong, who is entitled to act so long as he holds his present post of tutor to the heir, which post he will retain only during Mrs Ingleton’s pleasure. It is also provided that, in the event of any difference of opinion among the trustees, Mrs Ingleton (as is most proper) shall be permitted to decide; and lastly—a curious eccentricity on our dear friend’s part, which was perhaps hardly necessary to insert—in the event of Roger Ingleton, previous to his attaining his majority, becoming a felon, a lunatic, or marrying, he is to be regarded as dead, and the property thereby passes to the next heir, Captain Oliphant. I think we may congratulate ourselves on what is really a very simple will, and which, provided the trustees named consent to act, presents very little difficulty. I have telegraphed already to Captain Oliphant. Mr Armstrong, will you do me the favour, at your convenience, of intimating to me your consent or otherwise?”
Mr Armstrong made no response. It was indeed doubtful whether he had heard the question. For at that precise moment, gazing about him in bewilderment at the unexpected responsibility thus thrown upon him, his eyes became suddenly riveted by a picture. It was a portrait, partly concealed behind the curtain of the window in which he sat, but unveiled sufficiently to disclose the face of a fair-haired boy, younger by some years than Roger, with clear blue eyes and strong compressed mouth, somewhat sullen in temper, but with an air of recklessness and determination which, even in the portrait, fascinated the beholder. Mr Armstrong, although he had frequently been in his late employer’s study, had never noticed this picture before. Now, as he caught sight of it and suddenly met the flash of those wild bright eyes, he experienced something like a shock. He could not help recalling Dr Brandram’s sad story the other day. Something seemed mysteriously to connect this portrait and the story together in his mind. Strange that at such a moment, when the fate of the younger son was being decided, his guardian should thus come suddenly face to face with the elder!
Mr Armstrong was not a superstitious man, but he felt decidedly glad when a general break up of the party allowed him to get out of range of these not altogether friendly eyes, and escape to the seclusion of his own room.